An Impossible Day
by TheRedHat
Summary: Clara and The Doctor travel to an impossible place, where impossible things happen. It's set after The Name of The Doctor but involves Doomsday/Rose and River as well. This is a simple one-shot story. This is all there is, there isn't anymore. Unless you begged maybe.


**One Day**

**Clara**

_One day, you meet The Doctor, and of course, it's the best day ever. The problem is of course, that nothing quite compares to that first day. That moment when he grabs your hand and tells you to run, or crash lands in your backyard, or he saves your life and you didn't even know you were in danger. I should know. I've seen him through all these years, all those faces, all the people he has loved and lost. _

I've been travelling with him for a while now, longer than I ever expected, and as you'd expect it's brilliant. I know who he is and I know why I'm his impossible girl. It's only fitting then that an impossible moment occurs on a day that I'm with him. The day it happens, the day the TARDIS takes us somewhere unexpected, the day everything that was impossible before is suddenly possible for no reason what so ever, I watch from a distance. Just like I always have and always will.

That day we set off, and it's a normal day with The Doctor, until something goes wrong and we're flung around like ragdolls. I feel the steel slam against my head and I know that I'm going to pass out but I can't until I know he's alright. I reach my hand out and it grabs onto his, and then everything is dark and silent. I don't know where I am.

**The Doctor**

"Clara!" I scream, gently lifting her up, resting her head in my lap. I don't know what's happening but I know something is wrong. Where ever we're going we shouldn't be. Clara is breathing and I can see her eyes flutter under the lids. "My Clara. Wake up please," I beg. My impossible girl, leading me on impossible adventures. She's saved my life so many times, more times than I ever realised. She was there, the day I took the TARDIS, she saw me. She gave me this TARDIS, she gave me Idris. She gave me all the adventures I've ever had and I never realised it. Until we went to Trenzalore that is. Everyone I've known, everyone I've loved and lost, it's thanks to her. And yet she's here and she's perfectly normal. Just a normal girl. A beautiful, normal girl.

We stop, and Clara slowly opens her eyes, her hand flicking straight up to the back of her head. She looks at me but her eyes aren't focused on me, they aren't focused on anything. And then she is gone again, her eyes close and she slumps down, giving me just enough time to slip a hand under her before her head hits the ground. Just Clara.

**Clara**

When I wake up he's pacing and muttering to himself. He does it more than he'd ever admit but I know him, maybe better than he knows himself. "Something's wrong," he says, looking outside. I slowly heave myself off the ground. The blood rushes to my head and for a moment everything is starry and shiny, and then the world is back to normal. I'm a little dizzy but nothing I can't handle. I walk over to him as he continues to mutter. "We can't be here, we shouldn't be here, and it's not possible." He doesn't notice me at first, and then I slip my hand into his because I know he needs me right now. I don't know where we are, or where he thinks we are, and yes, I'm afraid. But fear is all part of being with The Doctor and you get used to it. He looks at me with a weak smile, one that I know he is only putting on to try and make me feel brave.

"Clara, stay here," he says and then he adds a little 'please' to the end. I do, not because I want to but because now I can see the absolute panic in his eyes and I know that he needs me to do what he asks just this once. He steps outside, his hand slipping away from mine as he searches the faces of the people on the street. I don't understand what is so wrong about where we are, not until I see her. Because we aren't supposed to be here at all. It really isn't possible. He must spot her as I do, because when I look back for him, he is running through the crowd towards her. He never thinks, he's always running. If he just shouted her name, she'd see the TARDIS. At this rate, he'll never catch her. And even though I said I'd stay here, I never said I would be quiet. So I yell "Rose Tyler!" and watch as she turns. She sees the TARDIS and starts to search the crowd for him. I run a hand along the door and smile.

**The Doctor**

I ask Clara to stay because she's already been hurt and I cannot lose her. So many times I've thought that I'd lost her, that I would never see her again and there's no way I will ever let her go. She nods when I ask, I see her eyes soften just a little and I know that she will stay. I know I shouldn't be here but now that I am I step outside, search the faces in the crowd. I find her, the young blonde woman who is walking away from me. My first instinct, the one I take, is to run. Run after her. Grab her hand and stop her. It's not until I start pushing through the crowd that I realise I won't reach her. I'm about to call her name when someone else does. Clara. Rose turns to where the voice came from, and that's when I realise that she doesn't look like the Rose I remember. Her face is stained with tears, her hair is not brushed and there is a stain on her shirt. She has her arms folded across herself as though she will fall apart if she doesn't and I wonder what has happened to my sweet, strong Rose Tyler, defender of the Earth.

**Rose**

He can't be here. He told me so himself, that's why we had to say goodbye the way we did. And the voice, it wasn't his though the TARDIS is there. It was a woman's voice, though she seems to have disappeared. Then again, he could be a woman now, who knows where he's come from, what has happened since he left. How is he here, how does he know to be here today? And then in front of me is a man with a bow-tie and he is so young. Younger than I've ever seen him. But I can see his eyes, and I can see him in there. He is not my doctor, but he is The Doctor. And when he clumsily tries to wipe away the dried tears on my cheek, fresh tears begin to fall.

**The Doctor**

"Rose," is all I say. I wrap my arms around her and her face burrows into my shoulder as she cries. I don't know what I did to make her cry, I don't know how to match this girl with my girl, the girl I know. Even when we said goodbye, she was strong. She cried, but so did I – even if she didn't see it – and she held herself together so well.

"You've changed," she says, looking me up and down as tears keep streaming from her eyes. She swipes her sleeve across her face, trying to make them go away. They keep falling. "I thought I'd never see you again."

"When was the last time?" I ask her, because I need to know who this Rose is, where she fits in. I left her with me, or at least a version of me that could grow old with her, love her the way I knew I never could, even though I did love her. He's not here, so either something has happened to him or she hasn't come back to me yet.

"Bad Wolf Bay," she manages to choke out, covering her mouth with her hand as she desperately tries to stop the sobs. "I..I'm so…so…sorry," she whispers, shaking her head.

"Rose, what happened? Tell me," I ask, pulling her back towards me. She sighs, a heavy sigh that weighs me down. Today she is broken, she is not who she was. When I see her again in my past, her future, another time, she is strong, fierce, the Rose I know. But she is broken now, and I don't know what has made her that way. I want to fix it so that she can be the Rose I know is inside her, the Rose Tyler the Earth needs. So what…

"I…lied…to you. That day…when I said…I lied," she finally says, managing to get a few words out between each gasp. The words are quite barely there, but I remember that day and suddenly I know where this is heading.

**Rose**

"_There's five of us now," I told him a month before. "Mum, Dad, Mickey…" and suddenly I thought of not saying it at all, not even bringing it up. "And the baby." That look. I will never forget the agony that crossed his face, the concern. And I knew he would come for me if I told him the truth. He would tear apart worlds; he would destroy everything if he could be with me if he'd known. Even if I hadn't confirmed it, if I'd just left it like that, if I'd said 'does it matter?' he'd have come back. I know he would have. That's just who he is. So instead, when he asked "You're not?" I smiled and I pretended for him._

"_No," I replied, with just the right kind of little laugh. "It's Mum. She's three months gone, little Tyler's on the way." And the relief that washed over his face told me I'd done the right thing. And then before I knew it he said "Rose Tyler…" and he was gone. The only thing I regret is that I missed the last few words of that sentence. _

"You were?" he asks, and even though he doesn't cry I can see the absolute shock, the effort it takes for him to stand here and hear this, that he left me alone with his child. Not that it matters, not anymore. I nod. And then it hits him.

"How long has it been?" he asks, and he looks me up and down again, and I can see him calculating, see him figuring out what I'm going to have to tell him.

"About a month since that day," I say and he nods, and a single tear falls. And I know that he knows but he's going to make me tell him for sure. So I give him that, because he deserves the truth this one time.

"I lost it, last night. I…I'm so sorry," I say and then something changes and he is covered in regeneration energy and I don't know what to do. "Doctor? Doctor?!" I shout and I watch as for a few moments his face changes back and he is the man I loved, the one I said goodbye to, the one I lied to in those last few minutes. And his lips are on mine and we are together once again. I know it can't last, that he can't be here and I can't go with him. I know that the woman is probably his new companion. I am glad he's not alone, but I wish it were me still. Even if I still lost our baby, even if…at least we'd have been together. When he pulls away, he is gone. He is the new face, the new body, a man I recognise and don't recognise.

**The Doctor**

Nothing about today makes sense. Nothing except those few moments when I'm kissing her and we are together and the world disappears. It returns to quickly and I can't find the strength to keep the moment there. Instead I look at her.

"You can never tell me what you just told me today. If you see me again, unless I start with the phrase "And the baby" and I have this face, do not tell me what you just told me," I say to her and that's when she realises she'll see me again. But not this me.

"When will I see you again?" she asks and even though she knows I can't tell her, there is something I can say.

"You'll figure it out. Rose Tyler, my Rose. And when you do, it'll be fantastic," I say. The last word feels strange coming from me, but her smile makes it better. She kisses my cheek and nods.

"I love you. Always have. Always will. And I would have loved her too," she says.

"Did you pick a name?" I ask as she goes to leave. I know it's silly, of course it is. It's probably the last thing she wants to talk about. But then she nods and says "Yes. I did." She doesn't look back as she walks away, and when I look back at the TARDIS I can see Clara standing in the doorway, and I know that Rose will be okay. But my impossible girl, she's another riddle altogether. And now we're running together. And she's perfect.

**River Song**

_Everybody knows that everybody dies, and nobody knows it like The Doctor. But I do think that all the skies and all the worlds might just turn dark if he ever, for one moment, accepts it. Everybody knows that everybody dies, but not every day. _

**Clara**

"_Some days are special, some days are so, so blessed. Some days nobody dies at all,"_ I tell him, and he nods. And his eyes light up, and he smiles at me. And even though I try, sometimes twice a day, not to fall in love, he is everything to me. I have lived a thousand lifetimes, always to save The Doctor. And there was one time when I missed him, but I saved her. It was meant to be Rose, but I failed that time. Amelia and Rory, they came along and they were perfect. And I was waiting when she came back to me, and I will keep her safe forever._ Aren't I a clever girl?_


End file.
